December – 2009 – mammoth // building nothing out of something

Monthly Archives: December 2009

December 21, 2009 – 2:47 pm

ordinance sculptors

[Manhattan skyscraper zoning ordinances, given visual form by Hugh Ferriss; image from Kosmograd’s flickr account] 1 The tricky thing with Duany is sorting out what is a genuine attempt to improve cities and what might be a carefully-constructed shield for the extension of the corporate real estate economy (so long as Duany says things like […]

By rholmes | Posted in architecture, urbanism | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (7) | Permalink
December 17, 2009 – 1:09 pm

whitesward

I’m entranced by the simplicity (and, in retrospect, obviousness) of the suggestions in the short text accompanying Sergio Lopez-Piñeiro’s series of photographs at Places, entitled “White Space”. Lopez-Piñeiro says: …even everyday plowing practices — practices with no artistic or design ambitions — have the capacity to transform snowed-in parking lots into beautiful winter gardens… We […]

By rholmes | Posted in geography, landscape-architecture, urbanism | Tagged , , | Comments (8) | Permalink
December 16, 2009 – 11:15 am

post-traumatic urbanism, ii

Adrian Lahoud has a thoughtful response to mammoth‘s earlier post “infrastructural urbanism and fracture-critical networks” (itself a response to another post by Lahoud on a recent studio he led), discussing how to properly read studio proposals, the master plan “as only an incitement to conversation rather than the conclusion of one”, Lahoud’s ambivalence about the […]

By rholmes | Posted in asides, infrastructure, urbanism | Tagged , , | Comments Off on post-traumatic urbanism, ii | Permalink
December 15, 2009 – 11:41 am

on bicycling infrastructure

While this recent Infrastructurist post (entitled “Reasons Not to Bike to Work: You Can Die”) on the sad news of another cycling fatality is unfortunately an excellent example of the importance of remembering that data is not the plural of anecdote, The Next American City has an excellent post by David Alpert (of Greater Greater […]

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December 13, 2009 – 12:50 am

quarantine economies

I’d like to echo Rob’s delight at being able to attend the final critique of the Landscapes of Quarantine Studio in NYC hosted by BLDGBLOG and Edible Geography.  We’ll make sure and keep folks posted on the details of the studio’s exhibit at the Storefront for Art and Architecture, which is due to open in […]

By Stephen | Posted in economics | Tagged , , | Comments (6) | Permalink
December 12, 2009 – 2:42 pm

@eatingbark

I’ve joined the masses on twitter. If that’s the kind of thing that you’re into, I’m @eatingbark. Feel free to help me pressure Stephen into doing the same.

By rholmes | Posted in asides | Tagged | Comments (1) | Permalink
December 9, 2009 – 5:55 pm

total service delivery

The Dirt has a lengthy interview conducted by Pierre Belanger with Joe Brown, chief executive of planning, design, and development at AECOM, the architecture and engineering firm that swallowed EDAW (formerly the world’s largest firm primarily focused on landscape architecture, if I recall correctly). The interview covers a wide range of issues, from the “need […]

By rholmes | Posted in asides, infrastructure, landscape-architecture, urbanism | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (5) | Permalink
December 9, 2009 – 12:23 pm

climate defense systems

An article from Sunday’s Washington Post discusses the development of “climate defense systems”, resulting from an increasing interest in not just climate change prevention, but also climate change adaptation.  The article is particularly focused on the Netherlands, where “the Dutch are spending billions of euros on ‘floating communities’ that can rise with surging flood waters, […]

By rholmes | Posted in asides, infrastructure, landscape | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (1) | Permalink
December 9, 2009 – 8:36 am

free association design

Via @bldgblog‘s link to this great post on the Mexican city of Guanajuato (which I first became fascinated with when the friend who introduced Stephen and I spent part of a summer there with an architecture studio), I see that Brett Milligan, whose project “Inundating the Border” mammoth briefly touched on in an earlier post […]

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December 7, 2009 – 4:56 pm

quarantine theater

Stephen and I were (of course) delighted to have the opportunity to join BLDGBLOG and Edible Geography (as well as many others) over the weekend for the concluding presentation from the Landscapes of Quarantine studio they’ve been conducting this fall.  The work that’s being produced (for a forthcoming book and exhibition at the Storefront for […]

By rholmes | Posted in dialogue | Tagged , , , | Comments (9) | Permalink
December 3, 2009 – 8:10 pm

infrastructural urbanism and fracture-critical networks

[Amos Coal Power Plant, from Mitch Epstein’s fantastic series American Power] Adrian Lahoud has a lengthy post on infrastructure and urbanism at Post-Traumatic Urbanism; the post is well worth reading. A handful of somewhat scattered comments on it follow. I strongly agree with the emphasis on “complex urban interdependencies”, in addition to “physical artefacts” of […]

By rholmes | Posted in infrastructure, urbanism | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (2) | Permalink
December 3, 2009 – 10:43 am

readings: bloggers

A few blogs, mostly relatively recently added to the reading list: Millenium People, which is on an Arctic hiatus, but should return after Christmas; a recommended starting point: the data city + jules verne // Serial Consign, Greg Smith (of Vague Terrain) on “digital culture and information design” // Quiet Babylon; as it says, “cyborgs, […]

By rholmes | Posted in asides | Tagged , | Comments (3) | Permalink
December 3, 2009 – 9:46 am

Larsson TED talk

Magnus Larsson, of BLDGBLOG fame, talking about the same project at TED.

By Stephen | Posted in asides | Tagged | Comments (1) | Permalink
December 1, 2009 – 4:58 pm

a superproject void

[Aerial image of the Hoover Dam Bypass under construction; I’d love to give credit for the image to the photographer, but it came to me through a long email chain, lacking any attribution, and I haven’t been able to locate the source] Economics journalist Louis Uchitelle complains about a “superproject void” in the Times; Infrastructurist […]

By rholmes | Posted in infrastructure | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (7) | Permalink